Recent Amazon.com Reader Review for “East of Mecca”

"This book is "unputdownable". It starkly illuminates what life is like for women in Saudi Arabia and is extremely well told by Sheila Flaherty. Just a great read. I couldn't help but be grateful to be living in the U.S. when I closed the book."

Buy My Novel “East of Mecca” Now

“Truth be told, being a grandma is as close as we ever get to perfection.” ~ Bryna Nelson Paston I never feel closer to God than when I hold my granddaughter. Ada, at nineteen months, is smart, loving, beautiful, and already has a wicked sense of humor. My afternoons with Ada are my best, happiest days…when […]

Our task is to say a holy yes to the real things of our life as they exist. ~Natalie Goldberg It’s New Year’s Eve and the pressure is on! The busyness of the holidays is coming to a close, but first we must ring in the New Year and ring out the old! There must […]

Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life. ~ Rumi Last week, December arrived with a super moon and the beginning of Mercury in Retrograde. Winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, is next week. Temperatures here in Chicago finally feel like winter. Skies are gray and snow […]

Women’s rights are human rights. ~ Elisabeth Moss I first read The Handmaid’s Tale the summer of 1989 while living in Saudi Arabia. Margaret Atwood’s award-winning novel was published in 1985, and I’d been aware of it, but completing my psychology internship and doctoral dissertation, while working and raising two kids, had taken precedence in […]

Everyone who knows me well, knows I am passionate about being a shrink. From the moment I embraced this career, I’ve never looked back. I can no longer distinguish what I do from who I am. And this is a good thing. And, sometimes, it’s hard to be a shrink. Like when I hear someone’s […]

We are coming to the end of Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I want to share my personal experiences—yet again. I am now a two-time survivor…fourteen years and almost two years. Both times, my cancer was found through my yearly mammogram and caught in the very earliest stages. I remain profoundly grateful. While there is […]

This is one of those stories that, if written in a novel or as a scene in a movie, would be dismissed as contrived. Unbelievable. And yet, it happened just as I describe. And all the circumstances, the timing, the spontaneity suggest more than mere coincidence. For me, it was the most profound experience of […]